Too Many Guns in Too Many Hands
Stop Gun Violence Americans are doing by the thousands because of the profusion of guns in our society. Just about anyone has access to a gun. It's too easy. And lives are being wasted as a result. Something must be done. Senseless Violence that Could have been Prevented Shooting at Santa Barabara *Seven dead in drive-by shooting near UC Santa Barbara :: A gunman sprayed bullets from a car, killing six people, in a drive-by shooting in a southern California college town before his car crashed and he was found dead inside, authorities said on Saturday. :Father of victim Blames Politicians for not Acting to Prevent Gun Violence: :* "The father of one of the California shooting victims eviscerated politicians for not enacting stricter gun laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting." :* '“Where the hell are these people we elect to congress that we spend so much money on? These people are getting rich sitting in Congress, and what do they do? They don’t take care of our kids. My kid died because nobody responded to what happened at Sandy Hook.”' (Source) Guns are devastating our communities: *On December 14, 2012, 20 children died at the hands of a lone, young gunman. He had obtained the guns from his mother, whom he murdered. She obviously believed those guns made her safe. The laws made it easy for him to obtain and kill many people. *...while some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago during that time, based on Department of Defense and FBI data. (source) *If the president does nothing, Mr Bloomberg notes that some 48,000 Americans will be murdered by guns during his second term—several times more Americans than died on September 11th 2001 and in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. (source) *More Americans killed by guns since 1968 than in all U.S. wars (source) *Joe Scarborough: Guns do not make us more safe: *"Having guns in the home triples the risk of suicide and doubles the risk of homicide, researchers reported on Monday." (source, 1-20-14) *"7,391 American kids and teens under age 20 were hospitalized from firearm injuries in 2009, according to a Yale School of Medicine study. That means, on average, a child or teen is shot almost every hour." (source) The NRA prevents sensible gun legislation by dictating to the Congress and White House what laws it passes: *Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell decried federal lawmakers for failing to pass a permanent ban on assault weapons, such as the one used in Friday’s deadly Colorado movie theater shooting. : Rendell said it was an “act of cowardice by the Congress” not to renew the ban, which expired in 2004, and blamed lawmakers for being too “terrified” of the National Rife Association, which has lobbied against the ban, to actually do it. (source) Public Supports Gun Control *"According to the new poll, 49 percent of Americans want gun laws made more strict, while 27 percent want no change and 18 percent want them to be less strict."(May 2014) :: "92 percent of Democrats, 74 percent of independents and 72 percent of Republicans support tightening background check laws. Support for states taking guns owned by mentally ill people wasn't quite as unanimous, but was supported 76 percent to 10 percent among Democrats, and 46 percent to 25 percent among independents. Republicans were about evenly divided, with 40 percent in favor and 38 percent opposed." Even some Republicans think that restricting the use of assault rifles makes sense: *Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a strong ally of the National Rifle Association and its legislative priorities, told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday that she could support tighter regulations of high-capacity magazines in the aftermath of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. “You know, I think we ought to be looking at where the real danger is, like those large clips, I think that does need to be looked at,” Hutchison, who is retiring from the Senate, said. She added, “it’s the semi-automatics and those large magazines that can be fired off very quickly. You do have to pull the trigger each time, but it’s very quick.” (source) *Last month, I sentenced Jared Lee Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in federal prison for his shooting rampage in Tucson. That tragedy left six people dead, more than twice that number injured and a community shaken to its core. *Loughner deserved his punishment. But during the sentencing, I also questioned the social utility of high-capacity magazines like the one that fed his Glock. And I lamented the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004, which prohibited the manufacture and importation of certain particularly deadly guns, as well as magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition. *...I say all of this as a gun owner. I say it as a conservative who was appointed to the federal bench by a Republican president. I say it as someone who prefers Fox News to MSNBC, and National Review Online to the Daily Kos. I say it as someone who thinks the Supreme Court got it right in District of Columbia vs. Heller, when it held that the 2nd Amendment gives us the right to possess guns for self-defense. (That's why I have mine.) I say it as someone who, generally speaking, is not a big fan of the regulatory state. (source) *Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) told The Republican/MassLive.com on Wednesday that he now supports federal action to ban assault weapons after the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Brown, who lost reelection in November to Elizabeth Warren, was once a darling of the National Rifle Association, which awarded Brown a lifetime ‘A’ rating during his first senate campaign for 2010′s special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. Brown had supported the state’s assault weapon ban but remained opposed to any federal action until last week’s tragedy changed his mind. “As a state legislator in Massachusetts I supported an assault weapons ban thinking other states would follow suit. But unfortunately, they have not and innocent people are being killed…As a result, I support a federal assault weapons ban, perhaps like the legislation we have in Massachusetts,” he told the news organization. (source) *During an appearance on CBS’s This Morning on Wednesday, GOP pollster Frank Luntz starkly admitted that the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) widely-panned proposal to put armed guards in public schools in the wake of the tragic shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School is out of touch with public sentiment and the American people. (source) We need a Ban on Assault Weapons and large capacity gun clips: *It worked before. From 1994 to 2004 we had a ban on assault weapons. And during that period the homicide rate declined where previously it had risen.